Patrick Skene Catling
Bird on a Wire
‘Tough being an adventurer in the twenty-first century.’ Robert Winrush, Adam Thorpe’s 51-year-old protagonist with kaleidoscopic morals, makes this observation when he abandons his work as a ‘freight dog’ – a freelance pilot who has been smuggling cargoes of weapons and mercenary soldiers – and takes flight from his vengeful, criminal employer. To earn brown envelopes bulging with sufficient cash to maintain a house and garden in Surrey and to send his son and daughter to boarding schools, Winrush has been able for some time to live with his false manifests, declaring freight as industrial machinery while in fact he is carrying deadly contraband, such as landmines. His previously adjustable conscience reaches a deadlock. He walks away from his contract and crew when he discovers that his latest illicit cargo is to be delivered to the Taliban.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency